Bird to race for Carlin

The 20-year-old has raced for the team before in his career, when he made his Formula BMW debut with Carlin in 2004.

"I'm delighted to be re-signing with Carlin," said Bird, who was a finalist for the McLaren Autosport BRDC young driver award for the second year running in 2006.

"It's a fantastic outfit and a championship winning team. I'm excited to be entering F3 and I'm looking forward to a great year."

Team boss Trevor Carlin said: "It's excellent to have Sam back with us. We were very pleased with his performance back in 2004 and have monitored his progress ever since.

"It's great that now Sam is ready to make the step up to F3, he can do it with his old team."

Carlin's third and most recent British F3 title came in 2005 with Alvaro Parente, but they missed out on retaining the crown last year as Mike Conway and Double R Racing took the spoils.

The team will switch from Mugen-Honda to Mercedes power for this year though, in a bid to get back on terms with their rivals.